Surprise

I’m probably the only person surprised by the fact that I went for a run last Saturday but there it is; I did and I am. It didn’t exactly go to plan but then I didn’t really expect it to so no surprise there.

I’d hoped to run over 13 miles. Anything more than 13 would have been a win. Turned out to be a 10.5 mile kind of day. To be honest, I was cooked after 8 but I was 2.5 miles from home so I kept slogging along until I reached the front door.

I can’t decide if the run went well or not. It wasn’t as hilly – I have to work pretty hard to find a route around here that isn’t all hills but this one only had me climbing a little over 500 feet overall so my pre-planning worked out well. I hadn’t gone out for a run since November so my idea was just to get myself out the door. Pace and effort were not to be stressed over. As it turns out I can run really slowly if I don’t think about pace. (That’s not good news.)

One of the bigger problems I had was that about 2 miles into the run I had to go to the bathroom. Normally I can sort of run through that; hold off until I get back home. But I knew that given the distance I wanted to cover it was unlikely I could hold out that long. I wasn’t ready to admit that yet though so I passed the next 2 bathrooms with only a few hesitations. That was a mistake! Things were going well though, I was feeling ok and moving along. I didn’t look at my watch so I didn’t realize that things were feeling ok because I was moving along at a snail’s pace but hey. Just before mile 8 I got a bit desperate. Thankfully there was a gas station straight ahead. I have never come that close to going to the bathroom in my pants! Lesson learned; next time I’ll stop at the first bathroom after I realize that a bathroom break is going to be necessary. Of course, the bigger problem was that once I stopped running my body didn’t want to start again. Plus those last 2.5 miles were almost entirely uphill. My snail’s pace slowed to a crawl.

I did have a recurring thought during my run. I kept remembering a bloop Dave wrote a while ago. He was describing a race he’d run and how he was trying to go at a slow pace but at one point found himself running with a group of high schoolers, one of which was a foot slapper. He found that he needed to abandon his plan and speed up to escape the irritating sound. I knew exactly what he meant and how that can annoy when I read it. The thing is though that these new shoes I got seem to have turned me into a foot slapper too. The shoes feel ok but I feel like I land very flat-footed in them and I make a gosh-awful stomping noise as I go along. I thought a few runs in them might change that but I still seem to be clomping along and it’s a bit annoying.

As I said, the good news was I felt ok during the run and got myself out there again. The bad news was it really was slower than I would have liked and I was super tired by the end! Still, if I can get out there again this Sat. I’ll be happy. Eventually I’ll pick up the pace.

I hope this means you were at least running on the TM from November till now. Can't imagine taking two months off, then going 10+ miles. Nice job getting out there no matter what.

Well, sort of. I didn't really run on the treadmill but I did all of my other workouts which includes lots of other cardio (bike, row, stairs) and some treadmill speed work along with weights etc. Thanks!

Sounds like a good run to me. You learned something, you persevered, and you got in some mentally and physically hard miles. That's a win regardless of time because you will grow and be rebuilt stronger for it.

Welcome to The Loop

The Loop is an active community of bloggers. "Loopsters" share their running experiences and give each other tons of encouragement. To get involved, post a comment on someone's blog or click the "Add Content" button and then select "Blog Post in The Loop" to start a blog of your own.

Remove From Your Block List

Manage Follow Preferences

Block

When you block a person, they can no longer invite you to a private message or post to your profile wall. Replies and comments they make will be collapsed/hidden by default. Finally, you'll never receive email notifications about content they create or likes they designate for your content.